Wite Out for the Brain
by Zaedah
Summary: Rarely did yelling over decomposing remains rank as a turn on.
1. Chapter 1

**Wite Out for the Brain**

_Wite Out is a registered trademark of Bic Corporation. I own neither the patent for the life-saving liquid nor the characters of this story.  
_

* * *

There is a particularly sickening sound when thin joints and ligaments and meet tissue-covered bone in a near epiphany of impromptu violence. It's not the pain, but the sharp echo in a room formerly silence that disturbs. A palm speeds with impulsive forward motion toward an unsuspecting cheekbone and the resulting clap of fleshly thunder stuns the participants. Defying time and space through a stoppage of both, one hand drops while another is raised. One registers the sting of having committed the strike, the other tests the targeted area's new tenderness.

It doesn't hurt much. But it kills all the same.

Like all unplanned events, consequences hadn't been entirely measured. In truth, no evidence existed that actual thinking had occurred whatsoever. But now he thinks fully and it all revolves around curses turning swiftly inward. Some of the vilest profanity is reserved for future leveling at Powell. The now-doomed man had planted that infinitesimal seed, the one that landed in far too fertile soil. The one he'd had no intention of watering. The one he'd spent all day trying to dislodge from his brain.

'Just kiss her and get it over with.'

So went the disgruntled man's muttering after yet another exercise in vicious vocabulary. That they had sparred over the partial remains of something currently indefinable should have shamed them. Doctors lacking respect for the deceased was unacceptable even by Kate's standards. Even if it was only bits of the dead; fragments laying in sterile trays seemed grateful that none of them were ears. Had there been anything in the compilation of an optical nature, they'd have gotten a veritable eyeful.

A woman surprised by romance is a dangerous creature.

Her expression is the embodiment of negative adjectives. Fury at once unleashed is just as quickly reigned in. It is impressive how the fire sparked and then extinguished in the span of a breath. That breath is too short to permit him to slide out of range, however. The slap vibrated the medical instruments beside them. Her hand now shakes int he aftermath, as though having punched the relative of a wall, something he'd been compared to in increasing repetition. The assessment had merit; he feels as thick as one.

Why would he expect this would go well?

A mild throb settles into his face as he considers blaming her for the deed. The darker shade of lipstick, a foreign addition to those lips, could be cited as mistaken invitation. Not that he cataloged her coloring choices. Often. And was it his fault that someone snuck through his gate and buried a seed in his clearly-marked, sign-posted, off-limits mental garden? He certainly hadn't given permission for his fantasies to serve as Miracle Gro. Still, she hasn't yelled. Hasn't uttered a syllable and it is possible this wasn't a good sign. The best killers suffer no compulsion to lecture before the bloodletting. It is possible that he will soon join those unidentifiable fragments.

They should make Wite Out for memories.

But those lips aren't terribly far away and their texture is now a known component. Fearful that he might repeat the mistake if given a chance, he opted for a shrug. Her reaction wasted no time in formation; a conglomeration of disbelief and contemplation of a follow-up smack. Lacking options and nursing a desire to save the other cheek, he uttered perhaps the worst excuse ever pulled out of pitifully thin air for a stolen and unwelcome kiss.

"It's Thursday."


	2. Chapter 2

**Wite Out for the Brain**

**Part Two**

If sound has a taste, the slap would assault the taste buds with concentrated bitterness, a sour poison scorching the tongue. The rise of bile is almost as surprising as the infringement that had birthed the hostile reaction. It could not be spat out, it would not be swallowed. And her mouth fills with venom potent enough to disintegrate the words that should have been spoken, leaving syllables in ashes between her teeth.

_It's not that she made a habit of violence…_

A first time offender, she blames him for the encroachment over their sand-drawn line. As he stands before her, hand resting on targeted cheek, he is a man caught trespassing. Their morning fight had contained no erotic elements that could have prompted this: rarely did yelling over decomposing remains rank as a turn on. To her recollection, she'd done nothing to provoke him. Suggestive teasing and overt leering took up no pages in their playbook; contact was restricted to sibling-standard touches motivated by only the purest intentions. But no court would find chasteness in his current purpose.

_It's not that she minded being kissed, in principle…_

But in practice, a kamikaze kiss is relationship suicide; dead before the crash. The episode of neglected judgment displayed no foreshadowing and therefore no pre-thought; just a dropping of lips onto hers like a bomb upon foreign soil. And the explosion arrives with the swing of her open palm. It hurts, but not nearly as much as her shattered ideal. Unplanned advances represented a failed litmus test for seriousness. And therein lay the problem.

_It's not that she hadn't imagined the corporeal properties of kissing the man…_

But where is the romance? The chase? The mistletoe? At least one of them should have shown the decency to be drunk. Inevitable as it may have been, she is still a woman who demanded some attempt at proper courting. Or at least warning. While she can summon no anger that he'd kissed her, she fumes over the way it was accomplished. The glorious moment when they'd taken this liberty should have come slowly, complete with meaning and planning and wooing. And possibly wine. And maybe less corpse bits. Is it wrong to expect this event to be conducted as a joint venture? Does he not understand they'd never again have a first kiss? Apparently the destruction of precedent is secondary to the inconvenient blow of rigid fingers on cheekbone. Next time he should have the good sense to duck. And next time comes perilously close when he gives his reason:

"It's Thursday."

_It's not that she expected a Titanic-worthy declaration…_

However, a repeat of the slap has to be forcefully halted at this nonsensical excuse. Yes, it is Thursday and last she checked, Thursday's child was… well, probably a well-adjusted team player. It seems an affront to the forgotten nursery rhyme to spoil the day with a one-sided advance. He may be content to execute a drive-by, but she won't allow such disservice to be the final act. Her lips have waited too long for an introduction to his to settle for a spontaneous and hasty salutation. His surprise greeting will be wiped from her mind, a deletion aborting the damage to her fantasies. Yes, it is Thursday and a fine day to have to fix a man's ineptness. When her hands rise again, they move of a tender volition and no cheeks are harmed in the undertaking.

"So do Thursday right," she admonishes with a mouth aiming for coveted collision.

_It's not that a tray-load of rotted flesh is a common accessory to passion…_

Still, if taste has a sound, her re-scripting of a first kiss would assault the ear drums with a hallelujah chorus. Indeed there is sound; a faint applause echoing from behind the closed door in the tenor of a suspected seed planter.


End file.
